Thanks DB for the info. I just checked and there is a whole $2 difference between the Kindle edition and the DeLuxe Paperback. I know there are mailing costs, but I think I’d prefer to have the actual book in my hot little hands – easier to flip through, nicer to read in the bath (have to read the kindle in a glad bag), and I can write my margin notes and underline more easily on paper(no-one would ever want to purchase my library as I wreck books).

Dear oh dear. I wish you’d stop getting you information from the rantings of Hitch. Look, condoms have a 14-15% failure rate. Abstinence 0% failure. Now you can rabbit on all you like about human nature, sexuality, desire, force, want etc, but people make their own choices. Like choosing to be in a particular religion,or not, following that religion, or not.

The 42 million Africans living with HIV/AIDS are not homos. They are mostly heterosexual Catholics…

LOL. You know for certain that 42 million Africans with HIV/AIDs are Catholics? None of them from any other religion and no atheists, of course. The World Book Encyclopedia states Islam as the majority religion in Africa (more’s the pity). So by your reckoning, no other group/religion is spreading AIDS in Africa other than heterosexual Catholics. That’s some wild turkey right there.

I agree that you can’t blame the african aides problem on the pope. But the funny thing early is the argument about whether christians or commies killed more people. Is that the stupidest argument to make or what? The church isn’t made moral by confirming the lower body count. If you want to argue the value of the church, “we murdered less” is not the place to start or finish. Once you’ve agreed the murdering at all, you’ve acknowledged a great deal of evil.

None of them from any other religion and no atheists, of course. The World Book Encyclopedia states Islam as the majority religion in Africa

Africa includes North Africa. The majority of the AIDs epidemic is in sub-saharan Africa, where Christianity is the dominant religion.

no other group/religion is spreading AIDS in Africa other than heterosexual Catholics

No other religion is telling people not to wear condoms. Not even Islam.

It’s pretty despicable to depths you will go to excuse the crimes of religion. Earlier we had CL claiming that Europe was converted peacefully by the beauty of the holy spirit. Now here’s Gab claiming the catholic church has nothing to do with HIV/AIDs. And even if it did…look, muslims!

I hope you realise that to us, you sound like the people who are still trying to defend communism.

I find whenever there is a debate about Hitler, the best point of reference is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.

Shirer was a correspondent in Germany from the election of the Nazis to America entered the War in 1941. After the war he was given access to the Nazi records and wrote his book after 15 years of research.

Anyhoo, with reference to religion during the period 1933 – 37 he makes the following points summarised below:

Hitler was nominally a Catholic;
Hitler attacked both the Catholic and Protestant Church in Mein Kampf;
Article 24 of the Nazi Party program demanded ‘liberty for all denominations so long as they are not a danger to … the moral feelings of the German Race. The party stands for positive Christianity;
Hitler promised to respect the rights of Christians;
The Nazis concluded a concordant with the Catholic Church which they promptly broke;
They dissolved the Catholic Youth League;
They arrested thousands of Catholic priests, nuns and lay leaders;
Most Protestants supported the Nazis in the 1933 elections;
Using intimidation, the Nazis rigged elections for the leader of the Protestants to form a new ‘Reich Church’;
The Nazis purged the church of anti Nazis and it came under its total control;
Himmler Rosenberg and Bormann, with Hitler’s backing, intended to destroy Christianity in Germany and replace it with the early paganism of the old German gods and the new paganism of the Nazis;
During the war, under Rosenberg’s direction the Nazis declared that they intended to exterminate the Christian faiths from Germany and replace the Bible with Mein Kampf.

Athiets amuse me deeply, for they spend far more time discussing religion than anyone else.

And it’s normally as laughably shallow and suprficial as the utter tripe Yobbo is babbling about so incoherently.

Amazing how he’s all het up about matter which occurred 1,200 years ago, and rather more silent on the religious war and civil war which has been raging for the last 60 years, and which is getting very, very much worse right now.

But of course, that one only involves Christians as victims, so that does not count.

Same old same old, athiest bigotry, ignorance and hypocrisy on public display.

The period when Christianity was at its most powerful was called the dark ages.

jupes, the Church was at it most powerful during High Medieval period through to the Renaissance. At least three hundred years after the ‘Dark Ages’ and even they weren’t that ‘dark’.

Lizzie, nilk, yes, I would buy the print rather than the kindle edition too in your position. I’ve come across a number of books with only a slight difference in price bewtween editions and always go for the print.

Now here’s Gab claiming the catholic church has nothing to do with HIV/AIDs.

I said no such thing, however I don’t believe the Cathoilc Church had anything to do with AIDS developing anywhere. Your comment is as awesome as your Obama’s pastor telling us the CIA developed the AIDs virus to kill blacks.

And even if it did…look, muslims!

Sorry, didn’t mean to disparage your precious Islam. I was merely pointing out how ridiculous your statement that all 42 million people with HIV/AIDS in Africa are heterosexual Catholics.

Da Hairy Irish Ape just got in and I greet him verbally while he deposits his briefcase and meanwhile I realise it is time for a drink. I pour myself a very nice glass of red and move in with the glass for the hug. He does not rebuff me, but sort of bleats like a little caught lamb.

Don’t pour dat all over me, Lizzie, he pleads in genuine anguish, remembering what I can do with a full glass.

As if. I have been defending the cultural colours of the Irish this afternoon, I tell him to show him that I am on top of things today.

The drugs thing surprises me. I would guess that a lot of kids have substituted legal drugs for illegal in the past decade or two.

Drug use moves around a great deal Yobbo with no clear explanation as to why that happens. So what we are seeing now could well reverse in the coming decades.

If Pinker’s argument re declining violence over the centuries is to be believed and he does have a good argument, then the increasing secularisation of society over the last 100 years and the loss of religious affiliation that continues into this century suggests that people are quite capable of being moral without religion. So argue all you like about who is the most evil but remember that if this trend continues religion will become irrelevant to the question of violence in society.

Have you ever heard more wank in your life than all these shrieking banshees banging on about match fixing and drugs in sport?

That fascist gnomelike shit stain Senator Xylophone has called for all gambling to be immediately suspended.

What a load of cobblers.

As I suspected, today’s confected drama was 90% pure electioneering bullshit by the Gillard rabble.

On SEN radio in Melbourne, presenter Mark Fine has just gone through Sports MInister Kate Lumdy’s speech line by line and exposed it as a giant beat-up with the Australian Crime Commission uncovering one possible case of match-fixing in the past year.

It will become apparent in the next few days that it was all piss and wind enabled by Fauxfacts and Their ABC for political purposes in an election year.

The 7.30 Report has just spent most of its half hour putting people to sleep with droning on about drugs in sport. Now at the final five minutes they’ve decided to do that other small “filler” story, the ICAC inquiry.

Interesting John. I wonder though if the decline in violence is more to do with an increased standard of living, which might also have a lot to do with the decrease in interest in religion.

I wonder, come the day when civilisation ends, which my death metal listening offsider seems to await with considerable eagerness perhaps exceeded only by Steve Keen, whether christian groups would be less violent to live in than irreligious ones?

Demand for electricity, meanwhile, continues to trend lower. Usage in NSW is at 10-year lows and Victoria at eight-year lows according to data for the December-January period, said Mike Sandiford, director of the Melbourne Energy Institute.

Electricity demand in the National Electricity Market is running about 16 per cent short of the amount regulators in the middle of the last decade expected current levels to be.

‘‘Nobody in their right mind would be building coal-fired power plants now,’’ Professor Sandiford said.

Even your brain stopped producing new brain cells a long time ago John.

In early intra-uterine life in fact.

Are you being a smart arse or ill-informed? There is over a decade of studies showing neurogenesis does occur in adult brains. One of the more surprising, and pleasing findings, is that even astrocytes can morph into neurons let alone the recent claims that dopaminergic neurons are also created in adulthood.

Sometimes they just get tired and did you pour himself one too at the same time as you moved in for the hug?

Men are funny creatures. My hubby is an avid book reader and sometimes in the middle of the night. He likes doing starnge things in the middle of the night and has always hept a mobile workstation in the bedroom (which has at times, over the years made we want to kill him, but really I like (no love) his work ethic and have got used to the rustling of paper as I go to sleep – strangely comforting to know someone is beavering away in the house).

When I go to bed for a cuddle now (forget the rest except occasionally – too many times already and we are both slowing down) – if he is caught in a gripper of a book – he takes off as soon as I get in to bed and says “I really like this book Im reading so I’m sleeping in the other bed in case I want to read it in the middle of the night.” I just go OK baby.

He knows I like my sleep right through not interrupted by kindle lightsor rustlings etc but him – well he is prone to 2 hour spurts where he works away, reads, wanders, eats, watches TV etc in da middle of da night!!. Forever since Ive known him, quite bizarre.

It used to infuriate me when I was syounger and sleep deprived after i had my son (I was so desperate for sleep I used to imagine he was waking me up on purpose to torture me further) because after he wandered about for an hour or two making noise in the night – I couldnt get back to sleep for another two hours after he woke me and after he had gone back to sleep.

I used to think he was possessed and used to get so mad at being woken by a man who wandered the house in the small hours.

He does that for me now Lizzie – he warns me he is likely to wake and vacates to the spare bed (thank goodness)…Im as grumpy as a bear if I dont get enuff sleep.

I wonder though if the decline in violence is more to do with an increased standard of living, which might also have a lot to do with the decrease in interest in religion.

You got it dude. I share that view. We live in a culture that still thinks thinking is the overwhelming factor in driving behavior. Environmental contingencies have huge impacts on behavior.

And yes, I did read a text which claimed that frequency of religion is related to the standard of living. If we want to reduce the more unpleasant aspects of human behavior raising the standard of living is the most efficacious way to do that.

Lizzie, funnily enough, I agree with Pedro as well on that point. I take it for granted that institutions are going to get up to mischief, but in judging them, I want to see the restraint they imposed on themselves, and what they achieved over the duration that would otherwise have not been achieved. I think the Church survives such an examination as does the British Empire and the Roman Republic, as well, for instance.

Still rare James but clearly still very important for memory consolidation. Not just the dentate gyrus though, the SVZ also produces neurons and a fascinating study earlier this year found that these neural precursors have a distinct preference for becoming GABA neurons. That was an experiment in relation to neuropathic pain, they transplanted these neurons into the DRG and presto the pain markers went down in the animals. The olfactory bulb is contentious, at least in humans, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is also a source.

The really weird stuff is how some of the neural progenitors from the DG can migrate all the way to the neocortex(chimp study).

Eg. but lots of this:

Anesthesiology. 2013 Jan 11. [Epub ahead of print]
Propofol Anesthesia Impairs the Maturation and Survival of Adult-born Hippocampal Neurons.
Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus of most mammals, including humans, and plays an important role in hippocampal-dependent learning.

If we want to reduce the more unpleasant aspects of human behavior raising the standard of living is the most efficacious way to do that.

Raising the standard of living of Islamists apparently does nothing to slow their will to kill weak decadent Westerners who smugly believe both that they should be wealthy whilst simultaneously championing policies that cause deprivation and misery

Thats the problem when the will of governments moves from civilised industrialisation to regulatory capture to de-industrialision where only the few are rewarded at the expense of the majority (ie the wealth of the few captures the regulatory process and causes a drain on the majority).
If we have electoral processes that are not simultaneously captured (and I dont think we do) it will only get worse before it gets better.

Fill your cauldron half full of water and drop a silver coin into it. Position the cauldron so that the light from the moon shines into the water. Gently sweep your
hands just above the surface, symbolically gathering the Moon’s silver.

While doing this say…

“Lovely Lady of the Moon, bring to me your
wealth right soon. Fill my hands with silver
and gold. All you give, my purse can hold.”

Repeat this three times. When finished, pour the water upon the earth.

“Raising the standard of living of Islamists apparently does nothing to slow their will to kill weak decadent Westerners who smugly believe both that they should be wealthy whilst simultaneously championing policies that cause deprivation and misery”

And if you looked at a 50 year snapshot of the Western cultural evolution from ignorant religiosity to the rational modern world you’d see it was different? They’re just doing the shit we did a few hundred years later, but the gap from the 30 years war to now is not so different in length from the gap from the Milvian Bridge to the explosion out of arabia.

Christianity had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world (and still hasn’t totally made it) so we should’nt be so surprised the muslims and hindus have their share of nutbags.

The period when Christianity was at its most powerful was called the dark ages.

The Christian world itself was greatly weakened in the Dark Ages. Remember the context of the time: territory from Syria to Spain was very rapidly lost to a completely new and alien enemy and the formerly peaceful Mediterranean became subject to raids (it was only Lepanto that ended that, nearly a thousand years later). To defeat a new and dangerous adversary, especially one driven by a potent ideology, it might be necessary to take on some of their ideas to survive, and so it can be argued that holy war and inquisition have Islamic antecedents – note that holy war first manifested itself in the Christian world in Spain, a country with the closest contact with Islam and at the pointy end in the struggle.

Havent most wars been sold to soldiers as holy wars in one form or another? I am to take it that religion or some form of it (adulation to a cause) has no greater power than to gather willing armies quickly who are prepared to act contrary to what the tennets of the religion they support, may preach (eg kindness, charity, subservience of self to a higher power etc)?

As if sacrifice of happiness and cold blooded murder in the present will yield peace in the future..

There is little in human experience to match the viciousness or scale of the governmental mass murder than Lenin’s and more so Stalin’s USSR.

I agree. I have at no time made any statement to suggest otherwise.

Mao and Pol Pot are close but the USSR and Mao had agricultural policy in addition to direct mass murder which killed millions more.

Mao killed more, actually. From, Mao, The Unknown Story, which I have here on my shelf:

Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth century leader.

It is facilely inane in the extreme to make them morally equivalent to pre-20 th century Christianity.

I haven’t. I think Communism and Fascism are evil ideologies, and Cultural Materialism is even worse. I think that Christianity, having borrowed extensively from Judaism and Greek philosophy, has a lot to recommend it as a man-made way of creating good order, especially in it’s current heavily modified and constrained iteration.

No one is defending totalitarianism. No one is defending Fascism. No one is defending Communism. No one is contesting the fact that totalitarian regimes in the 20th century killed more than previous cults.

Yeah but for population and technology those people would have massacred 100 million and starved 40 million more.

Who knows? I think it’s clear that if Charlemagne could have killed 4,500 infidels in a day, it would be no great stretch to kill 40,000 or more. Why do you think that’s even controversial?

The fact this has to be explained to you on demand doubles your dumbfuckery but par for the course for Yobbo

What an angry little ant you are. You clearly take this very seriously. You appear to have been personally stung by Yobbo having the temerity to point out an uncontested fact: that Christianity in Europe and Latin America was spread by the sword, and by my unoriginal comment about economies of scale. Grow up, man. Have some self-respect. Not everyone is a “dumb fuck” if they disagree with you.

Raising the standard of living of Islamists apparently does nothing to slow their will to kill weak decadent

Yeah but they are less violent now than in the days gone by. The issue is about the environment in which people are raised. Distribution of wealth is also an indicator of violence in society. The great virtue of modern societies is these allow many people at least the opportunity to rise from despair but in most Islamic countries it is still more like a feudal society with a ruling few dictating to the rest.

“I’m surprised to see you support the Church here and particularly the work of the Dominicans.”

Only an idiot would think that christianity had no role in the cultural evolution of the west. But I wouldn’t talk it up too much or forget that I don’t know the counterfactuals. The seed of the church fell on fertile ground in the greek and roman world and adapted to that environment as well as changing it. The israelite predecessors weren’t quite so impressive.

I think that Christianity, having borrowed extensively from Judaism and Greek philosophy, has a lot to recommend it as a man-made way of creating good order, especially in its current heavily modified and constrained iteration.

Thank GOD civilization has moderated the rage of some Christians. Imagine the destructive power of someone who as an adult manifests his frustration at his powerlessness to influence others being handed the controls. JamesK’s infantile rage and abuse is all the proof I need. He’s like a Western version of that Islamic Rage Boy meme.

JamesK, calm down. While the image of you smashing out your angry little missives with the veins bulging at your temples is briefly amusing, I worry that it’s symptomatic of stress levels and a failure to cope in your real-world existence.

You are living the life of a westerner who thinks he is always going to be rich because you are western and living in the fucking pasr
- you who not a few mintess ago hand this to say?

“the islamists with a will to kill weak decadent Westerners who smugly believe both that they should be wealthy whilst simultaneously championing policies that cause deprivation and misery”

Make up you mind what you do or dont agree with James.

Dont call me a leftist you stupid jerk when I am not. The US is running plicies rar a de- industrialising. Australia like a small flock of bleating lambs without a brain are following orders from US textbooks and propaganda for burearcrats and too stupid to object.

Now bugger off James K.
Two seconds ago you were complaining about…what was it? Decadent westerners wasnt it?

Yet you idiot – you want to accuse me of leftist dross. I could accuse you of leftist dross also from your above comment.

You dont know where you are cmoing from do you? Or was the main point to comnplain solely about islamists?

Do you make up this inane dross up after a particularly deep lungful from the bong Pedro?

The Church is literally the assembly of Christians

Since the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church has been defined as a union of human beings who are united by the profession of the same Christian faith, and by participation of and in the same sacraments under the direction of their lawful pastors, especially of the one representative of Christ on earth, the Bishop of Rome.

Remember how the lefty trolls told us endlessly that it is a good thing that electricity prices are going up…maybe this sad news will sting a few of the inner city luvvies…

A couple of weeks ago this site noted the shuttering of Danks Street Depot due to a number of factors, including higher power and refrigeration costs brought on by the carbon tax. Not surprisingly, Danks Street isn’t the only operation feeling the pinch:

Pedro, welcome to the inance club – do you not subscribe to the Bishop pf Rome Pedro?
Shane on you.
I presume James means the Pope when he says the Bishop of Rome?
Not that I would know ezpecting not much more than to add my living atoms to a layer of bedrock one day.

Jump “how about the benefits of islam?”
Cheeky. Well there could anti mosquito hijabs? They could be ueful somewhere tropical if light weight enough. Some reallly lovely architecture aqnd some great food etc. There is distinctly anti alcohol culture – dont know how I would go with that quite, they like group meetings (no internet tends to do that) etc
They are quire flexible having to bemd low early in life to pray, they dont retire their elders soon enough, they dont socially mix with the femalke sex early and often enough, the bread is much healthier than ours?

uncontested fact: that Christianity in Europe …was spread by the sword

Except that in Roman lands, or Ireland and England, and elsewhere, this was not the case. Three things spread Christianity in Europe and elsewhere: monasteries, bishops, and the conversion of the local ruler. The sword was, on the whole, the exception.

But I wouldn’t talk it up too much or forget that I don’t know the counterfactuals. The seed of the church fell on fertile ground in the greek and roman world and adapted to that environment as well as changing it.

Not so much “talk it up too much” as simply fully appreciate its achievement. BTW, the ground was quite run down by the first and second century AD; thankfully some Christians were good at cultivating these run-down fields. I thank them.

It was heartbreaking to learn of the abominations visited upon the Muslims in Mali by other Muslims. The details are horrific and are surfacing now after the French drove the islamists out. “This is not what Islam is supposed to be” came the bewildered wail from those poor wretched people in Mali who managed to survive a version of their Religion of Peace.

So it wasnt included on her pecuniary interest register …wait for it..after it sold but before it settled? She could make time the settlement any way she liked. I didnt know this loophole.

Its a boring looking unit for 530K and sold for well not much more given 5 years had passed. Doesnt look like she got Con the Greek to do it up or anything to make some decent money – my bet is this was an off the plan purchase by the look of it. She could be simply boring enough to sell it because its depreciation had kicked down?

She doesnt need it now but owned it before she became pm? I doubt she has ever lived in that thing much but maybe she thought she might need it in case Rudd came back?

Nah – nothing much to this one Jump unless you have something more interesting? If she hasnt been living in it – she doesnt need to sell it before she loses at the next election’

But hang on – she could be the next lazy ALP bastard to want to retire young and collect the gold pass and doesnt want the hassle of the unit?

I cannot deny that which you say in all honesty because I have witnessed this on many occasions when I nursed (re people calling on God in serious situations). It happens when people are very ill or who have relatives or loved ones or children who are very ill and is not uncommon at all. It makes you wonder what you would really do in the same circumstances etc I agree.
Life is a powerful incentive isnt it?

After being photographed smoking a cigarette while pregnant with her third child, Australian TV personality Chrissie Swan emotionally confessed she has “struggled terribly with totally giving up cigarettes since I found out I was pregnant” during a segment on her Melbourne radio show Chrissie and Jane this morning…

Swan’s confession comes just days after paparazzi photographed the pregnant star “having a sneaky cigarette.” Begging they “not write the story” of her secret shame “because I know how bad it looks,” Swan decided to come clean. “It is bad. And I also told them it was a deeply shameful secret no one knows…not my mum, not my best friend, not my partner.”

She should have had a late term abortion and every luvvie from Tony Jones to Julia Gillard would have praised her ‘bravery’.

Atheists turn to God when confronted with severe stress or at the end, it’s only natural, it’s innate. The nutshell is that while atheists consciously do not embrace god there are unconscious processes at play.

Study co-author Associate Professor Jamin Halberstadt says these results fit with the theory that fear of death prompts people to defend their own worldview, regardless of whether it is a religious or non-religious one.

And an open thread for the craven, complicit media to be put in the stocks and have soft, squishy, rotten vegetables pelted at them … then Monty Python’s architect sketch with John Cleese and the revolving blades might presage the next phase.

Just watched that Nigella person for the first time.
Hahaha, 1 recipe and 30 sexual connotations, it’s like granddad porn.
And if those soft, wrinkle free hands have worked over a hot stove for 30 years then I’m the next PM.